External Archviz - Landscape and foliage studies

[rabellogp]

Since I've never found a decent Royal Palm asset for real-time stuff, I decided to build one by myself from scratch... I'm using SpeedTree, and this is the first decent result I got:


http://i.imgur.com/hr0rGjy.jpg

There is still some work to do. I want to add more bark variations, improve the leaflets visuals and adjust the LODs. Maybe some scale adjustments too, those palms are huge in real life but it's looking a little bit off to me.

[cadviz]

Since I've never found a decent Royal Palm asset for real-time stuff, I decided to build one by myself from scratch... I'm using SpeedTree, and this is the first decent result I got:

[IMAGE]

There is still some work to do. I want to add more bark variations, improve the leaflets visuals and adjust the LODs. Maybe some scale adjustments too, those palms are huge in real life but it's looking a little bit off to me.

Nice try...
I don't know why you are not satisfied with the palms you used in your previous images...!!?
About the scale; in my country dates palms are everywhere; top height (leaves) may reach (15 meters); leaves diameter (5~8 meters). I suggest 12m height with 5m leaves Dia would be fair...
Best wishes

[rabellogp]

Nice try...
I don't know why you are not satisfied with the palms you used in your previous images...!!?
About the scale; in my country dates palms are everywhere; top height (leaves) may reach (15 meters); leaves diameter (5~8 meters). I suggest 12m height with 5m leaves Dia would be fair...
Best wishes

Thanks, man..
The palms from previous images are pretty, but too artificial for the level of photorealism I'm trying to achieve... I could tell they are not real at first glance. I've actually taken them from the Racing Game content, so I wasn't expecting photorealism anyway, they were just placeholders until I find something better

I think those first palms were Date Palms indeed, but the ones I've made are Royal Palms, they don't get so huge like the first ones in real life. They look fine by themselves, but when I put them near those wood seats they just look off I think...

One reference:

[irex]

Looks fantastic! We you doing any Photoshop edit on pictures or are they strait from UE?

[rabellogp]

Looks fantastic! We you doing any Photoshop edit on pictures or are they strait from UE?

No photoshop editions. It's strait from UE with the High Resolution Tool.

[rabellogp]

Ok. I think I've achieved something good enough for my taste


http://i.imgur.com/D97V5Go.jpg


One of the variations, highest LOD, inside Speedtree:

[heartlessphil]

Your palms are fantastic. Put that on marketplace :-)

[LordNyte]

Hey man! Great work.

I got a question for you with regards to the villa itself. Did you import the building as a single mesh? Have grouped similar stuff together (i.e. walls as one object, all windows as one object etc)? Or is everything broken down to small pieces?

[rabellogp]

Your palms are fantastic. Put that on marketplace :-)

Thanks, man! I'll do it! =)

Hey man! Great work.

I got a question for you with regards to the villa itself. Did you import the building as a single mesh? Have grouped similar stuff together (i.e. walls as one object, all windows as one object etc)? Or is everything broken down to small pieces?

It's all broken to pieces. Something like one or two walls per mesh. And this is only because of lightmap limitations, otherwise I'd definitely import all the walls as a single mesh with multiple materials if needed.

[3DForgeTeam]

Looks amazing!
How did you manage to get such clean and accurate reflections on windows?

[rabellogp]

Looks amazing!
How did you manage to get such clean and accurate reflections on windows?

Thanks!

I've used a Scene Capture Cube. I've showed how to use it: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...=1#post_341330

[duke22]

Thanks, man! I'll do it! =)



It's all broken to pieces. Something like one or two walls per mesh. And this is only because of lightmap limitations, otherwise I'd definitely import all the walls as a single mesh with multiple materials if needed.

What limitations? Max resolution or some other quirk?

[heartlessphil]

What limitations? Max resolution or some other quirk?

It's because a single lightmap for a whole building would not give accurate shadow results. You can't really have a lightmap of higher resolution than 2048 (performance-wise) and it's way to small to contain all the faces of a whole building. Best way is to separate meshes and assign a UV map to each part. It's an unreal limitation.

[heartlessphil]

But you can group them in unreal after that, with ctrl+g. Just don't merge all the meshes together!

[rabellogp]

What limitations? Max resolution or some other quirk?

Heartlessphil is right. 2048 is pretty much your practical lightmap resolution limit. Personally I like to keep everything under 1024 as 2048 will increase my lighting build time substantially... So you can keep increasing the lightmap resolution of a mesh until you get the quality you want. But once you reach 1024 or 2048, you'll need to start reducing the surface area size to keep increasing the lightmap pixel density. And the only way to reduce the surface area size of a mesh while keeping its size is to break it into peaces with their own lighmaps.